In the spring of 1941, Bill Bartlett unexpectedly entered Brooke’s life. Tall, charming, and two years her senior, he was an editor for a small, downstate paper who had come to apply for the recently vacated city editor job. Impressed by the young man, James had hired him on the spot. During his first visit to the paper’s library he had met Brooke, and they were immediately smitten with one another.
Their courtship was a happy, whirlwind affair and their June wedding was Syracuse’s social event of the season. After their honeymoon they took an apartment. While Bill was being mentored by Brooke’s father at the paper, Brooke and her mother searched for a first home for the newlyweds. But just as they were about to close on a newly built house, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and everything changed.
Bill enlisted, hoping to become a war correspondent. If one’s civilian career was in demand in the army, there was a good chance that one would be assigned to similar duty. After finishing his basic training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, he had been accepted into the three-month officer’s training program at Fort Benning, Virginia. He was nearly done with that training and although Bill’s letters brought Brooke great relief, she always feared what might happen to him once he was sent overseas.
With Bill gone, Brooke threw herself into both her work at the paper and supporting the home front. If Bill was willing to risk his life, then she too should be doing her best. And so she organized scrap collections, conducted blood drives, and participated in several other forms of volunteerism, all while still working full-time. But her greatest burden was constantly wondering whether her husband would survive the war. As a result of burning the candle at both ends, Brooke had become thin and pale, causing her parents to insist that she take some time off from everything.
At first she had resisted the notion, until she considered going to the cottage. This visit to Lake Evergreen would be different, she decided, because she would spend the entire summer there alone. And once rested, she would return to her job and civic duties with even greater zeal.
Brooke felt quite at home here, all by herself. Even so, she sometimes became lonely. In order to fight that feeling she would occasionally drive into Serendipity for dinner or to take in a movie at the small cinema there. She had recently seen a film called This Gun for Hire with some newcomer named Alan Ladd, and right there and then she had decided that he would become a major movie star.
Leaning back in her chair, she sighed and took another sip of tea. She missed Bill desperately. He had been her rock, her lover, her best friend. She needed him both mentally and physically, and his continued absence stabbed at her heart. She was a young, healthy woman, and like so many women whose husbands had gone off to war, she had needs that weren’t being fulfilled.
She of course knew that some military wives were finding illicit satisfaction in the arms of civilian men. But she loved Bill far too much to ever betray him. Some wartime wives were already asking their husbands serving in faraway lands for divorces and because it was so detrimental to morale, Congress had recently passed a law that made it far more difficult for military wives to petition for divorce. No matter to her, Brooke realized, because she could do no such thing to Bill. When the war ended, he would come home to a loyal and loving wife.
Despite her own faithfulness, however, she couldn’t help worrying about his. How often was he granted leave, she wondered, and where did he and his friends go, when they could? And if so, would he . . . ?
In an attempt to quash her doubts, Brooke closed her eyes and shook her head. No, she decided. He would not betray her. Short as it was, their time together had been wonderful. And besides, she and Bill had a plan. One day, Bill would run the paper. And they would have children—in their perfect world, one boy and one girl. That had been their dream, anyway, until the coming of the war. And when Bill returned they would take up their plan again. If he returned, she reminded herself.
The war, she thought solemnly. Everything is always about the damned war. Right down to how much sugar I can use in my pies . . .
After taking a deep breath, she stood from her chair to go and change her clothes. The pie would be ready soon, and she wanted to look presentable when she met her new neighbor . . .
A SHORT WHILE later, Brooke was carrying her sumptuous offering across the sandy beach. She had chosen a yellow sundress and a pair of matching Mary Janes. She was glad to see that Mr. Butler’s gray Packard coupe was still there, but when she mounted the steps and rapped lightly on the porch door, no one opened. She knocked again and waited a bit longer, but still there was no response.
Curious, she walked around the far corner of the house, looking for its owner. There, she saw a man kneeling in a freshly turned victory garden, planting seeds. From what Brooke could tell, he was tall and slim. His tan work shirt and matching trousers seemed a bit baggy on him. He was planting each seed lovingly, as if it were a small treasure.
At last, Brooke cleared her throat. “Uh . . . excuse me?” she said.
When he arose, he did so with a bit of difficulty. As Brooke looked at him, she realized that he was about her age and somewhat taller than she had first supposed. A smoldering cigarette dangled from between his lips. Before answering her, he took it from his mouth and stomped it into the sand.
“Hello there,” he said simply. His voice carried a masculine sort of huskiness that she found appealing. “I didn’t hear a car drive up, so you must be my new neighbor, right?”
When he smiled again, his grin had a bright, almost incandescent quality that Brooke immediately liked. As he pulled off his work gloves and stuffed them into his back pockets, he took a quick glance at the pie.
“And besides,” he added, “with sugar being so precious these days, who else would be bringing me dessert?”
Brooke walked closer and held out one hand. “I’m Brooke Bartlett,” she said. “You bought this tract of land from my father, James.”
He took her hand and shook it firmly. “Ah, yes,” he answered. “Your dad sure knows how to run a hard bargain, I’ll give him that. I’m Gregory Butler, but please call me Greg.”
“Greg . . . ,” Brooke answered.
He was a very striking man, she thought. His height and leanness gave one the impression that when God made him, the only raw materials the Almighty had left at his disposal were muscle, bone, and sharp angles. He seemed confident and quite at ease with himself. His longish, wavy hair was light brown, with blond highlights that shined in the late afternoon sun. She also noticed that he had a right clubfoot, which explained why he had difficulty rising from the garden. His kind-looking eyes were the softest shade of gray. Deep dimples graced either side of his mouth when he smiled, and a slim, dark mustache graced his upper lip. He looked rather like Errol Flynn, Brooke decided.
“What are you planting?” Brooke asked.
“Coneflowers,” he answered. “Are you familiar with them?”
Brooke nodded. “They’re in the daisy family, right?”
“Right,” Greg answered. “When these come up, they’ll be violet. And once they get started, they grow wild. I’m not sure that they’ll take in this sandy soil, though.”
“I thought that maybe you were planting a victory garden,” Brooke said.
Greg smiled and shook his head. “Truth is, I don’t need one,” he answered.
As Brooke handed him the pie, he thanked her.
“It looks delicious,” he added. He then held up an index finger. “May I?” he asked.
Brooke nodded. “Sure,” she said.
After dipping his fingertip gently into the pie, he tasted it. “God, that’s good,” he said. “And it’s chilled!”
Brooke beamed. “Right,” she answered. “It’s my own recipe.”
“What’s it called?” Greg asked.
“Churchill’s Cherry and Cream Cheese Pie.”
A curious look overcame Greg’s face. “Excuse me?” he asked.
“I name all my own recipes after war leaders and such,”
she answered.
Greg grinned. “Just ours, presumably?” he asked. “I mean, I hope that the daughter of upstate New York’s largest newspaper owner isn’t naming her food after our enemies! No ‘Hitler Ham,’ I take it?”
Brooke laughed broadly. “No!” she answered. “Even though he is one!”
As Greg smiled again, the corners of his eyes wrinkled pleasantly. “We need to get this into my refrigerator, don’t we?”
“Yes,” Brooke answered. “The sooner, the better.”
“I just made a pot of fresh coffee,” Greg said. “Would you like some?”
Brooke was surprised by that, and the look on her face said so. “You made a whole pot just for yourself?” she asked. “Where’d you get it all from?”
Greg gave her a sly wink. “I know a guy . . . ,” he said, and left it at that.
As Brooke followed Greg inside, she saw that his cottage was quite pleasant. Some unopened boxes lay here and there, indicating that Greg was still in the process of getting settled. Because new furniture was scarce these days, he had furnished the interior with used items that lent the place a comfortable, already-lived-in look. After following him into the kitchen, Brooke put the pie into the refrigerator.
“So how do you take your coffee?” Greg asked.
“Black, thanks,” Brooke answered.
Greg poured two steaming cupfuls. After putting some cream and sugar into his, he joined Brooke at the small kitchen table. As if it were the last cup she might ever enjoy, Brooke sipped her coffee.
“I haven’t had any this good in a long time,” she said, “regardless of how you got it.” She then took another sip of the very good coffee. “And if it means drinking some of this wonderful stuff once in a while,” she added, “then even J. Edgar Hoover won’t be able to drag the truth out of me. And besides, I love to cook. Might I borrow some sugar from time to time?”
“Sure,” he answered.
Brooke looked around again to see that several large, black-and-white framed photos already hung on the kitchen walls. They were all landscapes and had been expertly shot. Each of them was signed “Gregory Butler.”
“Your photographs are lovely,” she said. “Are you a professional photographer?”
“Yes,” Greg answered. “But my photography alone doesn’t pay the bills. I’m also a portraitist in oils. Between the two, I just make ends meet. I’m here for my first summer to work mostly on the photography. But I also brought my painting things, in case a job pops up. And I’ll be converting one of my bedrooms into a darkroom, so that I can develop my photos here. Come this fall I’ll take all the developed shots home and then deliver them to the New York City gallery that consigns my work.”
“So is that where you live?” Brooke asked.
Greg nodded. “Greenwich Village, to be exact,” he answered, “among all the other starving artists.”
Brooke sipped her coffee again. “Misery loves company?” she asked.
As Greg thought for a moment, Brooke suddenly worried that she might have misspoken. After all, she reminded herself, she had only known this man for about ten minutes.
Greg selected a Chesterfield from a gunmetal cigarette case lying on the table. Before lighting it, he raised his eyebrows.
“Do you mind?” he asked.
“Not at all,” Brooke answered.
“Thanks,” Greg replied.
He lit the cigarette with a matching lighter and took a welcome drag.
“Well,” Greg said while exhaling the smoke out his nostrils, “it’s really not so much about the money. It’s more that like minds always seem to congregate. Kind of like those American expatriates who gathered in Paris during the twenties. Novelists . . . painters . . . poets. You know—itinerant artists like me!”
Brooke laughed a little. “You don’t look very Bohemian,” she said.
“Well, I’m not, really,” he replied. “In fact, I was raised in Watertown. That’s how I know my way around up here. I learned photography from my dad, and then I attended art school in New York City. After that, I settled there.”
“And this cottage?” Brooke asked.
“My mother died when I was young, and I lost my dad two years ago,” he answered. “I used my small inheritance to build this cottage, because I wanted to own a summer place where I could work in peace. I’m sort of a loner by nature, I guess. This first summer is my trial run, so to speak. If it works out financially like I hope, I’ll spend all my summers here, taking photographs, and my winters in New York, painting portraits. Down there, there are no great wilderness scenes to photograph like up here. Conversely, up here there’s little call for portraits. So I’m hoping to alternate between the two, depending on the season. I didn’t get drafted because of my clubfoot.”
“I’m sorry,” Brooke said. “Does it bother you?”
Greg shook his head. “Not really,” he answered. “I was born with it, so . . .”
After letting his words trail off, Greg set his half-consumed cigarette in an ashtray and took another sip of coffee.
“Are you married?” Brooke asked. “Do you have a family of your own?”
“No,” he answered.
“At the risk of sounding forward,” Brooke said, “I’m surprised that an attractive man like you is still single.”
Before answering, Greg looked down at his expressive hands for a time. They appeared strong, with prominent knuckles and veins. Artist’s hands, Brooke realized. The sort of hands that can create beauty out of nothingness . . .
“I guess the right woman never came along,” he answered quietly.
Silence reclaimed the kitchen for a time as they sipped their coffee, each wondering silently about the other.
“And you?” Greg finally asked. “Your dad mentioned that he had a daughter working at his paper. What brings you up here all by yourself?”
Brooke provided him with a thumbnail sketch of her and Bill, and also explained her reasons for coming to Lake Evergreen this summer. When she finished, Greg picked up his cigarette again and sat back in his chair.
“It must be tough,” he said, “having your husband away like this. Do you hear from him much?”
Brooke sighed. “Because he’s a college graduate, right after he finished his basic training at Fort Polk, they put him straight into officer’s training at Fort Benning,” she answered. “He’s almost done with that now. And he writes as often as he can. But even if I got ten letters a day, they still wouldn’t be enough . . .”
No sooner had she spoken the words than her never-ending worry suddenly assaulted her heart again, and she sadly looked down at the floor. For the last six weeks there had been no one to talk to like this, and doing so now was surprisingly cathartic. But even though she hardly knew this man, there was already something about him that said her emotions would be safe in his care. At last, Brooke cleared her throat.
“And the mail is so slow,” she added, “because of the army censors. Just because he’s safe right now, that doesn’t mean he won’t come to some harm after he ships out to England. That’s where he thinks he’ll go, anyway. Three months ago, a friend of mine got a card from her husband in the morning mail and then a death notification telegram from the War Department that same night.”
With the return of that harsh memory, Brooke started to break down more fully. Silence again reigned between her and Greg for a time as she tried to collect herself. Her eyes were tearful, and she was shaking slightly. Understanding her plight, Greg politely remained quiet and gave her all the time she needed. He nearly reached out and touched her hand, then thought the better of it and offered her a handkerchief instead.
“Sorry,” Brooke said while dabbing at her eyes. “It happens, sometimes.”
“It’s highly understandable,” Greg answered. Then he gave her a little smile. “Would some of Churchill’s whatchamacallit pie help cheer you up?”
Brooke shook her head. “No appetite,” she answered. “It’s always the same when I g
et this way. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does . . . Anyway, I should be going.”
Greg smiled and patted her arm. “Before you leave . . . ,” he said.
He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, then he arose slowly, in that awkward but rather endearing way of his. After searching through one of his moving boxes he produced a full bag of sugar and another of roasted coffee beans. To Brooke’s surprise, he handed them to her.
“You didn’t get those from me,” he said.
At last, Brooke smiled. “Thank you so much!” she answered. “Does this make us partners in crime?”
“You bet,” Greg answered. “Thank you for the pie, Brooke. Should you need help with anything, just ask. And please come back over any time you want. Believe it or not, I can be a pretty good listener.”
Brooke nodded. “I already believe that,” she said. At last, she stood. “Well, good-bye, then,” she said.
“Bye . . . ,” Greg answered.
As Brooke forlornly carried her precious bags back toward her cottage, Greg stood on his porch and watched her go. She had removed her shoes and was slowly walking through the shallow waves, as if they provided some sort of soothing remedy for her emotional pain.
How lovely she is, Greg thought. And yet, so alone. Another disturbing sign of the times in which we all find ourselves . . .
As he lit another cigarette, something he couldn’t quite explain made him watch Brooke go until she was out of sight.
. . . AND I certainly didn’t distinguish myself with that first visit!” Chelsea read further. “Greg seems like such a nice man, and there I was, crying up a storm at his kitchen table the very first time that we met. I must think of some way to make it up to him. I didn’t mean to break down like that . . . but sometimes I miss Bill so much that I just can’t help myself. And I’m so tired now. Time for bed, it seems. Tonight I’ll sleep like the dead, despite all my worries . . .”
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